Frankfurt - Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature, criticized Turkey on Tuesday for prosecuting outspoken authors and charged that internet providers in his homeland were blocking free access to the internet site YouTube. In a speech at a ceremony to inaugurate the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, he said, "The tendency of the Turkish state to ban books and punish authors is unfortunately still there."
Pamuk and Turkish President Abdullah Gul had been invited to the evening ceremony, since Turkey and its authors are the special guest at the Book Fair this year. The fair begins Wednesday and runs to Sunday.
Pamuk was referring to a part of the Turkish criminal code that makes it an offence to insult Turkey. Although an attempt to prosecute him for such an offence collapsed, Pamuk said, it had been used in a bid "to intimidate authors like me."
Hundreds of authors and journalists had faced the charge, he said, according to a printed German translation of his remarks.
"While I was working on my novel that was published this year, I needed fast access to old Turkish films and songs, which was no problem thanks to YouTube," he said, referring to a site that stores vast numbers of home-recorded videos uploaded by its members.
"Today it is a problem, because people in Turkey are blocking access to YouTube and hundreds of other foreign websites on political grounds.
"It might suit those in power, but given that our culture and literature are distributed worldwide, we authors, publishers, artists and anyone in Turkey who participates actively or passively in cultural life cannot understand these measures," he said.
